L'Aimant - Chap 42 (M)
by GiuliettaC
Summary: (M-rated version of Chapter 42 of "L'Aimant". For the T-rated version of this chapter - and indeed for all other chapters of this fic - go to the story entitled, simply, "L'Aimant".) A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense. Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.


**L'Aimant – Chapter 42 (M)**

**Summary:**

(M-rated version of Chapter 42 of "L'Aimant")

A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.

Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.

_Chapter 42: _Sam and Georgie have another tête-à-tête. A trip to Hythe for Foyle, where he makes an upsetting discovery.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Sorry this chapter's late. Real Life got at me in the past week, then I fell prey to the attractions of Tumblr, but _dancesabove _nursed me through the doldrums so that something eventually got published ;o)

To make up for the wait, this is a nice, long chapter. Well, long anyway. 'Nice' is your call.

This is the **M-rated** version. For the **T-rated version of this chapter**, (and indeed for all other chapters of this fic), go to the story entitled, simply, "**L'Aimant**".

...

There's a common misapprehension about the phrase "I'll swing for him". Contrary to one popular definition, which merely assumes "swing" to mean "punch", the saying actually refers to the hanging penalty for murder.

* * *

**_Previously, in "L'Aimant"_**

_Milner strode up to the front desk, face aglow with the good news. "Sam's expecting! Mr Foyle's just told me." _

_From her seat in the back office, Georgie glanced up from her magazine. "Ooh! I'm glad he's telling people. Lovely, isn't it?"_

_Brooke allowed his jaw to drop theatrically. "Well ain't that a turn up for the books, eh? _

_"Davis!" he called over his shoulder, "howsabout that, then? Mrs Foyle's expectin'." As he spoke, Brooke turned his back on Milner, and pinned his constable with a warning glare._

_Davis took the hint obediently. "Ain't that something, Sarge? Yeah. Blimey. Fancy that. Well, knock me down with a fevver. Who'd've thought it? That was bloomin' quick..."_

_Brooke's face, which had been signalling encouragement and approval at the young man's reasonably credible expressions of surprise, declined suddenly into an eye-roll of exasperation._

_"None of your business 'ow quick it was, Davis," he supplied steadily, with a look of pointed menace. "'Cos that's life, innit? That's what 'appens, don't it?" He gave a prompting nod to Davis, back still turned to Milner._

_Davis' features illuminated in the manner of a caveman who'd discovered fire. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, course it does, Sarge."_

_"Very happy for the pair of them, Mr Milner," Brooke swivelled round to face his counterpart. "And Mrs Foyle'll make a lovely mother. Thinkin' back to how she had those salvage kiddies followin' her like a line of ducklings. Fair brings a tear to the eye. She's a natural."_

_"Yeah," piped Davis helpfully from behind. "And Mr Foyle's a natural, as well."_

* * *

**Chapter 42**

**Saturday, 10****th**** February 1945**

"That little chat we had last Monday..." Georgie grabbed Sam's hand and led her down the hall toward the stairs.

Sam dragged her feet a little, so that Georgie had to tug, and cast a glance toward the sitting room in hope of an excuse. "Er, Christopher is..."

"Busy reading, yes, I know," supplied her abductress. "So we can pick up on the conversation in my attic salon," her voice dropped, "where nobody can hear us."

"Loose lips sink, er..." tried Sam with a hint of desperation.

"Ooh, fancy that! You've read the posters," Georgie taunted. "We shan't be sinking any ships with _this_ agenda, though. Think of it more as an attempt to keep my boat afloat."

"You are the utter limit," sighed Sam. "Well, all right, but please be gentle with me."

"So here's the thing..."

They sat together in the attic now, and Georgie tucked her feet beneath her in the old chintz armchair.

"...my father being a doctor and all that, none of the anatomy's a mystery."

"Oh good," said Sam, and said a prayer of thanks for _that,_ at least.

"I even understand what happens to a man, you know, hydraulics-wise, and what's supposed to end up where. I once stripped down a piston engine when they trained me for the MTC," she added proudly.

"You did? And did you actually manage to assemble it again?" The question was entirely serious. Sam's own attempt at same had been a rotten failure, provoking Mrs Bradley into what her MTC friend Beryl had liked to call a corset-busting fit.

"But what I've _no_ conception of, is how to do it _right_."

Sam must have looked a little startled then, for Georgie added, "I'm a reasonably quick learner, mind you—and we've got till Tuesday." Whereupon she dug into the gap between the cushioned seat of her easy chair and its arm, and brought out a shorthand notebook that she must have crammed there earlier, and a pencil.

Georgie flourished it and licked the tip.

"2B. It's stamped into the side," she grinned. "An _artist's _pencil. Found it in a drawer. 2B or not 2B." She settled the pad on her lap. "All right now. Fire away. I'm ready."

"No. _Seriously?_" Sam sent her an appalled look. "You don't mean to tell me you intend to write this conversation down? Someone might find your notes and read them."

"Ah-haah!" The cry of triumph from her young companion indicated, on the contrary, that she _did _intend. "Pitman shorthand. Seventy words per minute. Not very fast, but anything I write is safe from all but the select few. So. Whenever you're ready, then..."

"Georgie." Sam's eyes fixed on her friend's. "I _can't _tell you how to 'do it right'. There _is _no right. Nobody told _me_ what to do."

"Oh? Didn't they?" Georgina's brows rose. She hadn't reckoned with there being no right answer. "Christopher taught you nothing?"

"Mmw... n... y... Honestly. What a question. I wouldn't even know how to begin answering it."

"Oh."

The look of disappointment on the younger woman's face spoke volumes to her expectations of Samantha.

"Georgie, everybody's different. Christopher and Andrew..."

"Are both Foyles," Georgie finished for her. "You said it yourself on Monday. Said I'd 'bought myself a Foyle'. _And_ you walked out with Andrew, to boot."

"Ah. He told you, then." Sam sent her a look of apology. "Listen, you should realise it was entirely well-behaved. On his side, and on mine. The difference being that he clearly wasn't smitten with me. Which is going to make _your _life immensely easy, Dear."

"What is? That he isn't smitten with you?"

"No, you _goose_," Sam winced. "Forget _me_. You're the one he's smitten with. It means that you can do no wrong. In _that_ department."

The pencil found its way between Georgina's teeth. "I wouldn't be too sure," she observed darkly. "If I get nervous, I do silly things. Mind you," she grinned, revealing trademark dimples, "it takes a lot to make me nervous."

"Not much to make you curious, though," retorted Sam.

Both women snorted; then they sat back to reflect a little.

"Look," began Georgie again, "I don't expect a blow-by-blow account..."

"That's a relief."

"...but _some _information would be good. Like, did it hurt?"

Sam swallowed. "Nooo... not for long," she lied. "And I'm sure Andrew will be very gentle with you."

Georgie licked her lips and nodded. "Can I ask you something else?"

"I don't much fancy my chances of stopping you."

Georgie formed her lips around the next question while squinting at a corner of the ceiling. "Hhhhhhhow big do they get?"

"What—honestly?" Sam gaped. "They don't put that in books? You know, I've never measured."

Georgie telegraphed her interest by sitting forwards. "Well, show me with your fingers, then, from memory."

Sam tried with thumb and middle finger, but found the stretch inadequate. Revising tactics, she thought back to piano lessons as a girl, and stretched her thumb as far out from her little finger as she could make it go. An octave clearly wasn't quite enough. Frowning in exasperation, she deployed both hands to give the measure.

"No! You're joking!" Georgie squeaked. "_That big?_ What about the, um, the..."

"Girth," supplied Sam, sagely. "Well, I think I might just manage _that_ with one hand." So she did.

"Oh, for crying out loud! You're telling me _that _doesn't hurt?"

"Not everyone's the same," Sam reassured her, leaning across to pat her on her folded knees.

Georgie unwound her legs, and sat up. "I bought myself a Foyle, though..."

Sam shrugged. "Things stretch and sort of_ oil _themselves_… Now hush_," she whispered urgently, detecting sounds of footfalls on the second flight of stairs. "_I think that..._"

"Everything all right up here, you ladies?" Christopher tapped lightly on the door, which stood a little way ajar, and poked his head around into the attic sitting room.

"Yes. Absolutely, Darling," Sam answered brightly, noting with despair that Georgie's wide eyes had immediately riveted themselves to her husband's groin. Sam's foot nudged her ankle gently, whereupon the girl hauled her gaze back up to a decent level.

"Everything... you're _sure_?"

"Mmm," managed Georgie. "Thank you, Christopher."

"Rrright." He drew a line under the subject, reasoning he wasn't likely to be getting any farther in this school-dormitory atmosphere. "I'm making a drink. Should I bring one up, or are you coming down?" He sent Sam a polite look of enquiry.

"We're coming down. Quite shortly. We'll be down before you know it." The message in Sam's widened eyes was 'do shove off'.

"I see. Well, hot drink in the kitchen in five minutes, then." He turned and made his way downstairs.

"How do they _walk_ in comfort?" whispered Georgie. "With all the _other stuff_ as well?"

"I wouldn't let it worry you," Sam told her kindly. "It obviously doesn't worry them."

Georgina leant forward. "Sam, one more thing I need to know…"

"Fine. Let's have it."

"When you're intimate with... with _someone_, how do you tell..."—Georgie looked up pleadingly—"... when it's time to stop?"

Sam's eyebrows climbed, expecting more to follow. But Georgie's question ended there; her head was tilted, ready for an answer. The realisation settled on Samantha that for Georgie, and in spite of all the drawings she had studied in her father's dusty medical books, innocence went well beyond traditional virginity.

"Oh, my _dear_," she reached and gently took the younger woman's hand. "You have _such_ a delight in store. Sit there. I'm off to fetch our tea upstairs."

...

"What's going on between you two up there?" Christopher glanced at Sam askance as he poured the boiling water into the teapot.

"I can't discuss it with you," she said simply.

He returned the kettle to the hob. "Remember our agreement?"

"Mmm," her eyes crept sideways.

"Not _'Mmm'_," he prompted, picking up the lid. "How 'bout _'Yes, I remember our agreement, Christopher'_?_.'_" He stirred the pot, then slotted in the lid and dressed the whole thing in a knitted green-and-yellow woollen cosy.

"I _do _remember. I remember it. But Georgie needs her questions answered, and _you know exactly why_," Sam let her voice drop to a whisper. "Andrew will be here on Tuesday, and then at the weekend..."

"Yep. They'll be alone." Foyle cocked an eyebrow as he poured the milk into three cups. "You don't trust Andrew to behave himself?" he smiled. "Should I alert her mother?"

Sam ignored his flippancy, and fidgeted with the precious sugar lumps. "I trust him. Yes, I trust him. Makes no difference, though. I know what's going to happen. S'pose there's no point mentioning I trusted _you_..."

Foyle's face moved not a muscle, but he turned and reached up for a moss-green enamel tray that stood atop the dresser shelves, and placed it on the table. Then he set two of the cups and saucers down on it, along with the sugar bowl. "Biscuits?" he enquired, pivoting round to snag the biscuit barrel from a shelf.

"Yes, please, we wouldn't mind a custard cream apiece."

"You know," he told her mildly, pouring out the tea, "when I left the attic room, I looked down and had every expectation of finding my flies undone. But incredibly, they weren't. And in that moment I gave up the fight. So here," he handed her the tray. "Go back upstairs and do your worst. And do your best."

"I really love you sometimes," Sam said, leaning in to kiss him.

"Hmm." He sipped his drink. "I saw the writing on the wall the day that Charles invoked an image of my household as a harem. Try and leave me a bit of dignity at the end of this illustrated talk?"

"Always, Darling. Thank you." Sam sent him a ravishing smile and sashayed from the kitchen.

* * *

**Sunday, 11****th**** February, 1945**

"Alice says her name is Sara... Sara—let me get this right, Mummy—_Im-mer-glück. _It's got one of those funny dotty things over the 'u'. Apparently you have to sharpen the sound so it comes out like an 'i'."

She paused to absorb her mother's heavily ironical remark that Churchill wouldn't pander to the awful language, why should she?

"Yes, but German or not, it's her _name, _Mummy. And she's originally from somewhere near Dortmund... no... I've no idea where that is either, but Alice seemed to think that it's industrial, and probably quite flattened now."

Although, as Sam observed to Geraldine a little sadly, that wouldn't make much difference to Sara Immerglück. Her parents had already disappeared from home before she came to Britain with the Kindertransport just before the war began.

"Her foster family in London's really struggling after being bombed out. Sara's fifteen—nearly sixteen now. They need to place her somewhere else. So I wondered whether you and Daddy... _I'd _have offered, but we've now got Georgie, not to mention Andrew's flying career looking a bit dicey, so he might end up at home as well. She could have my old room, couldn't she?"

Sam's wish to help was altruistic, but it had also crossed her mind that, as her mother's pregnancy advanced, having another woman in the house might be extremely useful. So she hoped her parents would say yes.

It was agreed that Geraldine would consult with Iain, and if he were amenable, Sam would ask Alice to put the girl on the train as far as Arundel.

"Meanwhile, I'll try and arrange to have her met at Arundel station, then brought across to you."

When Sam replaced the receiver, she was rubbing her hands in satisfaction. A good job done. Her first refugee was placed. She felt sure her father would not refuse. He was too good-hearted.

"Georgie!" she called, "I wonder if your kind papa would be prepared to do us all a favour?"

* * *

**Monday, 12****th**** February, 1945**

The first day of the working week saw Milner, Foyle and Georgie on the road for Hythe. Foyle had withdrawn to the back seat of the Wolseley out of consideration for Milner's nominal seniority on the murders case, and watched with amused interest as Paul and Georgie made halting sense of each other.

He had never met Pat Dale, but Sam's brief account of her had made him curious to do so. As it happened, primed by Milner's request on behalf of his boss for Fielding's home address, Patricia had some unexpected information waiting for the DCS when the Hastings contingent arrived at Hythe.

"Glad to meet you, Sir," she greeted him smartly, with a nod to Milner, whose attention was diverted to a box of documents that Georgie handed to him. "Got a bit of news for you, if you're intending a visit to DCS Fielding's home. His son's turned up, pretty much out of the blue. Wanted his father's effects, such as they were. We'd packed them in a box, so when he came, I let him take them."

"Satisfied he _was_ who he said he was?" Foyle squinted one eye at her, head tilted in birdlike interest.

"Sir," Pat planted her feet slightly apart so that she wasn't looking down on her superior, "you don't think I'd've handed over DCS Fielding's things without first asking for identification?"

"Mmwell," Foyle stroked his earlobe between thumb and forefinger, "just wondered how you'd _know_ him, since he wasn't much in evidence, from what I hear."

"He had a GPO pass with his name on, for a start. But more to the point, he was the spit of DCS Fielding..." Pat went on to give details, "and his name is Alick."

"Right," Foyle nodded. "Rings a bell. That's right. Alick Fielding. GPO, you say?"

"Yes, Sir. I took the number from his pass and rang the GPO. He puts in phone lines at the airfields round the SouthCoast. Makes sure all the comms are up and running. Reserved occupation, which is why he's not in uniform. But for the record, I can tell you he's got two flat feet—they wouldn't've had him in the army, anyway."

Foyle's eyes narrowed attentively at Sergeant Dale's words. "Well, thanks for that," he told her, "I'll, um..." He turned to summon Milner, and addressed him with good-humoured irony. "All right if I use your driver for a couple of hours, Sergeant?"

Milner caught Pat's eye and crumpled a smile. "Whatever you need, Sir."

"Is he always like this?" Pat asked Paul frankly, as they watched him leave.

"No." Paul reassured her. "Actually, yes, though. If he thinks you're being a waste of space, the disdain drips over you like resin, and sets. Sets hard. I know; I've felt it happen. What _you _just had there was a quick once-over, followed by an opportunity to dig yourself a hole. But you passed with flying colours. He'll be all right with you now."

Sergeant Dale smoothed her uniform. "A different kettle of fish from Fielding, I'd say. Mind you, Fielding wasn't _bad_... But yours is... He's a tricky one, isn't he?"

"Tricky as they come," grinned Milner, before adding, "If you can tear your attention off the Boss, I need your help to understand some photos taken at the scenes of crime."

...

Out in a leafy suburb of Hythe, Georgie brought the Wolseley to a halt before an unassuming 1930s gabled semi-detached, and applied the handbrake.

"Wait here," he instructed, climbing out of the car. "Might be a bit."

Surveying the front garden, Foyle concluded that it still looked reasonably well-kept, winter not being the season of unfettered growth, and Fielding not being too long in his grave. The house itself did not give out any signs of occupation, as the curtains were still drawn. This might have seemed normal enough, had he not just learned that Fielding's son was back in residence. Still, it was the middle of the day, and it was possible the son had left the house without attending to the blackouts.

Foyle opened the gate and walked up the path. He pulled and dropped the knocker on the panelled, stained-glass-glazed front door, then waited on the checked quarry tiles inside the porch.

And waited.

When no answer was forthcoming, he peered back out of the porch to see if he could spot some sign of life through the bay window. But there was none, and so Foyle exited the front garden again, and strolled round to the neighbouring house, where Georgie was able to observe him in animated conversation on the doorstep with a middle-aged woman in an apron.

Much gesturing later, Foyle was standing in the porch of Fielding's house once more and banging loudly on the door to rouse the occupant. Georgie consulted her watch: five minutes... ten. The Boss wasn't giving up easily. Then at last the front door swung inwards and a dishevelled figure in a dressing grown hove into view. The figure at the door gave every impression of a person roused from sleep and not expecting visitors. His hair stuck up in all directions, and his face showed several days' growth of beard, by Georgie's reckoning.

"What the bloody hell do you want?" the man's sullen voice drifted across to her.

"Name's Foyle. I'm a policeman, former colleague of your father's and I want, the bloody hell, to talk to you about his death, Alick," came the calm reply from Foyle. "You going to let me in, or am I going to stand here banging on your door until you do? The neighbours won't appreciate it."

"Well, f*ck 'em, then."

"Nnnot part of the service."

Alick Fielding's gaze bent round the compact and determined figure on his doorstep, and fell upon the car and Georgie. He smirked unpleasantly. "You wanna fetch _her _in, that'd be all right," he leered.

"Yeah, that's about enough for me," said Foyle, and applied the flat of his hand to Fielding's chest, pushing him firmly back inside the house, and following after to loud protests of "Who the sh*t are you, to order me...?"

The voices faded, and the last thing Georgie heard was Foyle's observing sharply, "You're stinking drunk, Alick. Black market liquor, is it?" Then the door closed behind him, and she saw a light go on in the hall.

Inside, Foyle took the measure of the young man retreating under the pressure of his palm. Several inches taller than himself, and well built, but somewhat awkward on his feet, Alick Fielding had the same strong jaw and long chin as his father, and an imposing Roman nose. That he was David Fielding's son was unquestionable. And on a good day, when he wasn't in his cups, his eyes would probably have been less rheumy than his late father's. But today was not one of those days.

"Bleeding _liberty_," he spat at Foyle, collapsing on a horsehair settee positioned with its back to the bay window.

Foyle stuck his hands into his coat pockets and assessed his surroundings. The house had every appearance of a tidy home that had been either occupied by savages or roughed up by a hurricane. Swamped beneath a pile of dirty clothes was the dining table, with its wooden candlesticks and neat chenille runner peeking out from underneath. The bits of tablecloth-clad surface _not_ buried under laundry bore several empty liquor bottles and two open tins of—what? From the smell, Foyle reckoned one of them was salmon. And not recent salmon, either. The jagged-edged tin lid had been peeled back, and a long-tined fork poked out.

Lucky, he reflected, that this was not the insect season; otherwise this room would be a bluebottle's paradise. _Christ! The stench of booze and fish, and cigarettes, and unwashed body._ He threaded round the back of the settee, pulled open the curtains, and pushed up a window sash to let in some fresh air.

"Oi!" protested the settee's reclining occupant, "Too bloody cold."

Foyle's eyes moved back to Alick Fielding, supine on the settee in his dressing gown and filthy vest. He spotted a knitted rug on the back of a nearby chair, and threw it at him.

"Cover up. Your lungs'll thank you for the fresh air."

What followed could only ever have been a difficult conversation, conducted as it was in the aftermath of an alcoholic bender, and all it served to do was convince Foyle that Fielding's son was no credit to his father. The fact that Alick Fielding had kept his job with the GPO at all came over as something of a miracle, but Foyle knew well enough the effects of manpower shortages on the Home Front. And telephone engineers were in short supply, when so many able-bodied skilled men had joined the Royal Signals early on.

"I hadn't seen the old man in six months," slurred Alick, wincing in disgust at the contents of the water glass Foyle had shoved into his hand. "We had nothing left to say to one another, anyway. But if you want a reason, chew on this: my mother was a tart. She led him such a life you wouldn't know, and he just took it. When I found out her game, and told him whatI knew, he laid me flat. Told me to mind my own business. I haven't bothered much with him since then."

"And when your mother died?" Foyle pressed him quietly.

"Didn't want to know me at the funeral. And I didn't even come because of her. I came because of him."

"Sorry to hear that," Foyle's look of genuine sympathy was met with a splutter of derision, so he withdrew it, and let his eyes drift to the mantelpiece.

There stood a wedding photograph of a much younger Fielding. The figure of his wife was barely visible, so faded was the photograph by exposure to the daylight over time.

"You married, are you?" Alick's voice was scornful.

"Yep."

"My advice to you, mate: Don't trust her. Not one inch."

Foyle's brows rose, and his chin slid sideways. "That's your considered view, then?"

"Yeah, that's _my considered view,_" mocked Alick. "Now hop it. I haven't buried one sad old git to put up with another fancy-footing it around my house."

As Foyle withdrew up the path, he felt a sudden swell of pride for his own beloved son, the fighter pilot hero whose relationship with booze amounted to a pint or two off duty, and whose respect and love for his late mother complemented and enhanced his own treasured memories of Rosalind. He made to climb into the Wolseley, but before he had one foot inside, a thought occurred to him, and with a short apology to Georgie, he directed his steps next door again. There he spent a few minutes in conversation on the doorstep before returning to the car.

"I want to make a short stop at the local surgery," he told Georgina.

Later, as they drove back to Hythe Station, he pondered on his sad discovery from the lips of Dr Farrell. Soon after David Fielding's son was born, nerve damage from a war injury to his back had rendered the man impotent.

So Mrs Fielding had stayed with her husband, from loyalty, perhaps—or maybe pity—but had taken her _other _needs elsewhere. A tragic circumstance, but it chilled Foyle to the core, and kept him silent and withdrawn throughout the journey back to Hastings.

...

That night in bed, when he turned away from her to douse the bedside lamp, Sam wound her arms around him and whispered:

"Won't you tell me what's the matter?"

Foyle's eyes alighted on the statue still in its wrapping in the corner of the bedroom, where they'd stored it out of reach of prying eyes. The sight of it oppressed him.

"A quarter of a century," he uttered.

"I beg your pardon, Darling?" Sam crept closer, fitting her lap around his bottom. "What is?"

"I am. Older."

Sam yawned loudly. "I'm tired tonight. It's been a long day, Christopher. So if we're going to '_do_' the weary subject of your age again, perhaps you could just own up and admit what's brought this on?"

He turned the light off, tucking his uppermost hand under the pillow, and stayed silent.

"You've been to Hythe," she challenged him, "and something has depressed you. Is it these murders? No leads?"

"Milner's handling all that," he mumbled.

"So. What then?" Sam's knee nudged into the crook of his, her hand burrowing underneath his pyjama jacket. She was surprised to encounter another layer there. "Since when do you come to bed in your vest?" she asked in puzzlement.

When no answer came, she screwed her strength and heaved him over on his back.

"No. Don't, Sam..." he protested, but Sam was already reaching over for the light switch.

Though the bulb was dim, she saw immediately his cheeks were wet.

"Talk," she said and caught his face between her hands so that he had to look at her.

"There'll... come a time," he managed, haltingly, "when age will come between us."

Sam wanted to be sympathetic, but this was just 'old hat', as far as she was concerned. Whatever words of comfort she might have found for him in a more sentimental mood, her current interest devolved upon his singlet.

"Why the vest?" she frowned, climbing astride him and busily unbuttoning his pyjama jacket to expose the offending undergarment. "Are you cold? Have you got a rash?" She batted his hands away as he tried to interfere, and lifted the white woven cotton to peer underneath. Everything appeared to be in order. "Are you hiding from me?" she joked.

Christopher looked aside, and she knew she'd landed on the reason.

"You're _hiding_? Don't be a silly, Christopher. You don't need to hide from me. Take it off."

He gripped her wrists, and gazed up at her, earnest in his pain. "There'll... come a time" he told her carefully, "when you'll begin to feel I don't come up to scratch. And perhaps I _shan't _be. When that time comes, and if you find a lover, Sam, I'll understand... but I don't ever want to know."

Sam squinted at him. _Oh! The martyrdom of the man! _Any other day, perhaps, she would have cajoled him, buttered up his ego, but actually, today... her first day wading through the paperwork for placing refugees, five hours of phone-calls, pleading people's causes, two trips to the post office with a pile of letters to ensure she caught the post. Sam was worn out.

"I don't feel 'up to scratch' myself, while we're about the subject, so perhaps _you _ought to find yourself a lover." Her eyes flashed, and she wriggled on him, defying his misery, and looked down at him with brows raised, waiting for capitulation.

Instead, she got an intense display of self-control that raised his colour to a fierce shade of crimson, and anchored his inside cheek between teeth clamped down vice-like on the flesh. The tears welling in his eyes didn't overflow this time, but they were undeniable. His eyes met hers and widened in command. "Don't _ever _want to know, Sam."

She blinked, and all the bounce and cheek went out of her. "How little you must think of me," she said, voice cracking, and looked away.

His hands crept up her arms. "I want you to be happy, Sam. Even _after_ I can't make you happy any more."

"Well," Sam fought to control herself. "Can't say I'm very happy _now,_ actually. Thank you."

Their eyes locked, and the pain that shot between them opened up the floodgates for Samantha.

Her tears hit Christopher hard, dislodging his self-pity. The same instant, he forgot his own anguish, folding her against him and rubbing at her back. "I'm sorry, Love," he murmured. "Sorry. There. Please stop. I've been a thoughtless fool."

As he calmed her tears, he confessed to her all that he had found out about Fielding's injury, and his wife, adding a few toned-down details of his encounter with Alick.

"So you see," he explained, "I just thought... just wanted you to know that I would always love you, regardless of whether we could..."

"Oh, be quiet!" she cried into his neck. "I _hate_ it when you're like this."

He tucked in his chin and kissed her. "Hate me? Really hate me?"

"Yes," she said, and opened to him.

Sam saw something mesmerising in her husband's soulful eyes. They held both a bittersweet apology and an unspoken plea, and made her heady with the need to do whatever it might take to quell his suffering. Christopher closed his lids to give his full attention to the kiss, and she was treated to the fan of his long lashes on his cheeks.

She sighed contentedly, and rolled onto her back, tugging her man with her till his body covered hers. Her fingertips crept up under his layers, pressing into the warm, bare flesh of his flanks.

"Darling, take it off..." she pleaded through their kiss.

To Christopher, the reasons for his anguish were already half-forgotten, fading to a blur behind the impetus to share this special comfort with his lovely wife. He pushed himself up, shrugging the pyjama jacket from his shoulders, and peeled off the vest, flinging it aside. Sam's fingers darted to explore his chest, making an anxious inventory of his torso.

"All present and correct... and wonderful," she murmured absently. "Don't ever hide from me."

She stroked her thumbs across his nipples for the simple pleasure of seeing them grow hard beneath her touch.

"Tsss!" Christopher's head jerked back and he arched against her, nudging at the soft flesh he hoped soon to invade. Fondling his scalp beneath the greying chestnut curls, Sam drew his head down to her breast.

One ivory orb submitted to discovery. He nibbled at the yielding curve of it, feathering his lips across the flesh to leave a trail of hot, dry, teasing kisses. Then he lingered, worrying at the pink bud with his questing tongue. When it stood erect, and burgeoning with promise, Christopher paused to gaze into Sam's eyes.

"You're beautiful," he breathed, and coaxed her arm above her head. His mouth nipped at the translucent, tender skin along her arm and savoured its smooth texture, tracing with his tongue the pattern of blue veins beneath her delicate flesh. One hand closed round her wrist, thumb nestling first inside her palm, then moving to caress the sensitised heel of her hand.

Sam caught her breath and moaned restlessly beneath him, "Love me, Christopher."

He had captured only one hand, so Sam let the other trail the length of his body, her fingers ghosting up his spine and down again until they came to rest upon the place she knew to be his special weakness. She began stroking the small of his back in a spiral of seduction certain to put him in a state beyond resistance.

Her efforts were rewarded by low groans of pleasure. Christopher was lost in rapture underneath her light, lingering touch, and arched into her yet again to urge her to accept him. Not that she could hide her readiness: Sam's need for him exuded from every pore, her scent responding to his own arousal. It was a natural spice that held a sensual power surpassing any manufactured fragrance. The cottony, sweet aroma of _L'Aimant_ which he recognised as Sam's by day was heightened now with top-notes of desire and undertones of passion.

He drew back; his body hard and eager for the union. Sam whimpered at the momentary loss, and strained her hips up from the mattress after him, greedily anticipating his proportions, unexaggerated in her account to Georgie.

His free hand slid beneath her, weight supported on his elbow, and his fingers splayed under her shoulder blade. She sensed that he was close to joining with her now, and urged, eyes locked to his, "Please, Darling. _Please!_"

The better to guide himself, Christopher let go of her wrist, and Sam drank in his rapt expression: handsome features furrowed with restraint and concentration. He glided into her, eyes half-shut, lips parted, eliciting a gasp to match his own, and once again inside her found a velvet harbour for his ecstasy.

They lay a moment, intoxicated with the utter bliss of union, then slowly built their rhythm round the certain confidence they shared of bringing joy one to the other. His lips sank to her neck; hers locked into his palm; and so they climbed together, whispering soft, loving words. He plied her, too, with the firm pad of his thumb to lift her pleasure to the level of his own.

"I'll never need to keep a thing from you," Sam breathed into his fingers, "I want _no _one else, and I never shall."

The gratitude that welled inside him formed into two conflicting impulses: the first, a driving lust to have her now, completely; and the second to spin out the moment—make the pleasure last. He made his choice, and slowed the rhythm, savouring each stroke; and Sam's adoring, intimate caress of him each time he sank inside her told him he had chosen right.

Unhurried, unrestrained, his soft calls—"_Oh_Sam—_Dar_ling—_Oh_Sam"—were the mantra of his thrusts. Sam's answers came as gentle urgings interleaved with stunned, ecstatic silences; but as her stimulation mounted, these evolved into a litany of wanton cries that wove his name with that of the Almighty. And though Christopher's mouth was occupied with planting heated kisses on Samantha's neck and shoulders, he couldn't help but smile with pride through every kiss.

Their intimacy lasted many minutes longer for the sheer determination Christopher applied to holding back the pace. And when at last he heard his wife cry out and felt her stiffen, throbbing her completion round him, he gave full vent to all of his anxiety, and channelled it into a final sprint of thrusts that ended in a sobbing climax, clasping her against him as his banked-up seed discharged inside her in a fierce volley.

The intensity of his orgasm stood as both measure and antithesis of his earlier despair: that prospect of surrendering Samantha to another man, some grey day in the future.

"Oh, dear God, Sam," he breathed into her neck, when they had calmed a little. "I think I'd swing for any man who touched you."

"That's flattering," Sam mused contentedly into his thinning curls. "What weapon would you use, DCS Foyle? A left hook, or sardonic disapproval?"

"I didn't mean it in the sense of 'punch him'," Foyle muttered darkly.

Georgie, who had crept down her flight of stairs to use the lavatory, froze on the landing. She hoped she'd memorised the creaky bits of floorboard by the patterns on the carpet, but the noises from Christopher's and Samantha's bedroom had her suddenly flummoxed. If she moved now, she was certain to forget a squeaky spot and embarrass everybody. So she stood there, teeth gritted, on tiptoe and didn't move a muscle, hoping against hope not to be heard.

Ten minutes later, and her legs were aching splendidly. So was her jaw; but no sign of the sounds of amorous activity abating. The couple were in good voice, she would give them that. _Oh well_, she reasoned to herself, _if after this you _still_ can't work out when it's time to stop, there's little hope for you._ Gingerly, she held her breath and lowered herself from tiptoe, so that her feet were fully planted on the carpet. Relieved to have achieved _that_ noiselessly at least, she expelled the breath she'd held, and waited.

Georgie had taken to chewing at a ragged fingernail to pass the time, and though she'd managed to achieve a fairly neat curve twice, still the edge had stayed slightly rough, so, trapped in situ as she was, she'd had another go. The nail was getting shorter each time round. There was a nail-file in the bathroom cupboard, she was sure, but at this rate, before she got to it—and she recalled Sam's admonition on the subject of nail-biting—she wouldn't have a fingernail to file.

Therefore it was with some relief that she finally heard the growl of gentle snoring emanating from the bedroom, and this made her feel safe enough to pick her way across the landing to the loo. It was a fortunate attribute of youth that lack of trauma to her undercarriage propelled her through the episode without an embarrassing accident. In years to come, she would look back upon the incident with a hint of fond nostalgia for the days when a strong bladder was a given, rather than a distant memory.

******** TBC ********

**More Author's Notes:**

Well, _there's _a thing: Gawn Grainger, who played DCS Fielding, is married to Zoë Wanamaker. Fancy.

…

I like to satisfy myself that vocabulary I use is authentic to the period. The term "bender" for an alcoholic binge bothered me, so I looked it up. Turns out the likely origin is a reference to the British sixpence— a coin now obsolete, but early in its lifetime, when it was still possible to get drunk for a penny, sixpence, or a "bender" represented six consecutive days of oblivion.

…

My dad was a GPO engineer and could have spent his war in Britain. Instead, he volunteered for the army in 1939, and finished up at El Alamein, driving a signals wagon. Jerry was keen on strafing such vehicles, since knocking out communications on the battlefield was a major coup. Inevitably he caught a nasty dose of shrapnel and finished up in hospital in Cairo for eight weeks. He never spoke much about the war, but the two things he _did_ tell me were that a) the artillery noise at El Alamein was bloody loud and bloody terrifying, and b) war cured him of volunteering for anything, ever again.

...

More soon. No, really! o)

In fact, look out for my Valentine's Day fic tomorrow.

**GiuC**


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